Our Finnish sprinter pushed her way through the race’s chaotic final kilometers with her teammates and then powered up the finishing straight to place fourth on the line. The last few hundred meters were electric. With a huge crowd roaring them on, the fastest women in the world bobbed and wove down the road, bumping shoulders as they surged towards the finish. Lotte didn’t touch her brakes. She threaded her way through the speeding peloton and kicked toward the line where she finished less than a bike length behind the winner.

It was a great finish for EF-Oatly-Cannondale after a flat, fast first stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

This year’s Grand Départ for the race is taking place in the Netherlands. Stage 1 took the peloton from Rotterdam for a lap of the South Holland farmland and back up the coast to Den Haag by the North Sea. With a strong wind blowing, it was a nervous day for the bunch, but Lotta, Alison Jackson, Noemi Rüegg, Kristen Faulkner, Magdeleine Vallieres, and Clara Emond kept calm, remaining sheltered in the peloton and enjoying the cheers from the roadside crowds, before they pushed forward to set Lotta up for the sprint.

Tomorrow, our women will go for it again. Day 2 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is a double day, starting with a 67.9-km road stage from Dordrecht to Rotterdam, followed by an evening time trial through the city streets of downtown Rotterdam.

Hear our riders’ thoughts from Stage 1.

We needed to be a little bit flexible today. That was the story. It was quite hectic in the final. It was a long straight three kilometers at the end. I had the girls helping me get in position. The plan was to be behind DSM, but somehow it naturally went to the SD Worx lane. Alison and Noemi were there to help me out. It was a long, long straight with a little kicker in the end. Maybe I was a little bit too far behind and had to use a little bit too much energy, be a little bit too much in the wind, so with all these little mistakes I think fourth place was okay. I haven’t ridden with most of the girls for a long, long time, so I think we came together quite nicely for this race. With today’s experience, we have another try tomorrow.

Man, that was nuts!  There was so much chaos, but actually far fewer crashes than I thought there might be, because everyone here is a pretty good bike handler. It went by so fast, because you had to concentrate so much. It was nuts. We're pretty happy with Lotta pulling in for fourth. There are still some things that we can do better to make the leap to first. The sprint was pretty messy. I would have rather that we had clear space with 500 to go, but I think we're pretty happy with our first day.